The Performance of the Horses During the Expedition
Though a detailed list of the expedition's provisions is not available, a list of sorts can be made by using the journals themselves and the list of Caley's provisions mentioned earlier. In this way some idea can be formed of what the horses were required to carry.
The expedition took seven muskets plus ammunition, tents, brush clearing implements (hooks, hoes etc.), compasses and cooking utensils. Their food included salt meat and flour and probably, like Caley, also a supply of biscuit, rice, sugar and tea and perhaps even the portable soup which Caley valued greatly. With seven men, the weight of these provisions would have been considerably greater than Caley's. Five dogs and four horses, of course, also had to be fed and while the odd bird or wallaby might have helped feed the dogs, as we shall see the natural fodder available for the horses proved inadequate and had to be cut where available and added to their load. The horses were not burdened, though, with a growing collection of natural history specimens!
There is no doubt that the loaded horses experienced problems with the mountain terrain and sometimes stumbled and fell. (May 13, 19, June 4) They "travelled very awkwardly", wrote Blaxland, "being much incommoded by the small trees and brush at places and the ridge they followed being very crooked and intricate between the gullies" (Blaxland 1813, p. 3). The ground too, often with sharp, jutting rocks and loose stones that made ascents and descents especially difficult, severely tested the horses.
The general method of proceeding was to cut a path through the bush and then bring the loaded horses forward. A camp would be established and a couple of men left to look after the horses and provisions while the others cut and cleared a path forward through the often thick brush, returning to camp at the end of the day. The daily distances achieved often varied considerably and sometimes, when the going was especially difficult, they camped in the one spot for a couple of days and were forced to re-walk the same section of cleared track several times. It was tedious and exhausting work.
Several times they were forced to redistribute the horses' loads. Descending Mount York (May 29) they used a hoe to cut a small trench to prevent the horses from slipping, but even so "the descent was so steep, that the horses could but just keep their footing without a load, so that, for some way, the party were obliged to carry the packages themselves." (Blaxland 1823, p. 74) On the return ascent of Mount York (June 2) they again had to carry the horses' loads for part of the way and later, towards the end of the return journey (June 4), "one of them fell this day with its load quite exhausted and was with difficulty got on after putting its load on the other horses" (Blaxland 1813, p. 11). On only one occasion did they actually lose a horse. It got away in the night (May 16) and fortunately they found it again the next morning "about a mile and a half back" (Blaxland 1813, p. 4).
The most serious and regular problem was lack of feed and water. Good grass was generally difficult to procure on the mountains, reported Blaxland, the horses surviving on "coarse swamp grass or rush [as] nothing else could be got for them" (Blaxland 1813, p. 5). "It was", confirmed Wentworth, "the scanty fare which these swamps afford that enabled our horses to exist." (Wentworth 1813, p. 112) Where grass and rush was available it had to be cut and loaded on the horses for later use. Occasionally only enough water could be found for the men and the horses went without. Perhaps the decision, unlike the majority of earlier expeditions, to go out in the cooler months was made not only with the men in mind, for there is little doubt that the horses would have fared very badly in the hot, dry months (Brownscombe 2004, p. 223). By the time they got the horses down Mount York "they were getting into miserable condition" (Blaxland 1813, p. 9). Soon, however, they passed into "open meadow land clear of trees, covered with grass two and three feet high" and "encamped on the bank of fine stream of water to rest themselves and to refresh their horses" (Blaxland 1813, p. 10).
Feed for horses continued to be a problem even after the road was built and had to be carried until inns offering baiting facilities began to appear in the 1820s and 1830s. It is interesting that many of the feed and water locations identified in 1813 eventually became regular stopping places for stock, then as locations for inns and eventually towns. Springwood, Lawson ('Christmas Swamp') and Wentworth Falls, for example, can trace their stories in this way.
© John Low